It's Not A But, Clara
by carolinelea
Summary: The Doctor and Clara heal after Trenzalore. Whouffle.


The sound terrifies her.

It goes on and on, shrill and demanding and brutal. It tears at her throat, robs her of her own breath, pounds on her eardrums.

Clara braces her nerves, turns toward the sound with what feels like the absolute last shred of resolution in her body, and tries to shout the sound down with her own voice.

Then she realizes it _is_ her own voice.

_EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE._

She cries and cowers, horrified, helpless. She is stuck somewhere, lost somewhere, and no one is looking for her. No one even knows where she is, or who she is. She thinks hard, as hard as she can, and realizes that not even she remembers who she is.

_Please help me,_ she moans. _I don't know where I am…I don't know where I am…_

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry," pleads the Doctor. "Oh, Clara, I'm so sorry."<p>

She fights him. She scratches and throws her elbows, clearly terrified of whatever lifetime is playing out in her mind's eye. She screams unintelligibly, almost without pausing for breath. It's only a few increasingly more painful moments later (when her small lips form the syllables that murdered his own people) that he understands.

And he can't stand one single millisecond more.

"Hold her down," he commands harshly. "Now."

They're all standing there in the TARDIS, unsure and aghast. Strax, strangely, is the first one who reacts to the Doctor's orders.

"Yes, sir," he says, and the Sontaran catches Clara's left arm and pins it to the console room floor with surprising gentleness. Jenny moves forward wordlessly and holds Clara's opposite side. The Doctor kneels next to his struggling, hyperventilating companion, and one of her boots catches him in the shin. Vastra is there, mercifully, and the Doctor grits his teeth as the madam warrior pins Clara's legs to the floor.

The Doctor places his hands on Clara's face – thumbs under her eyes, on her sinuses, the tips of his fingers on her temples. He takes a deep breath and slips under the fence of Clara's mind.

Clara's eyes fly open at the intrusion, and she inhales over and over as though she is having an asthma attack, but it's better than screaming herself hoarse.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," chants the Doctor. Clara's mind is even more frightening that his time stream: cold, electric air that is dark as shadow, peppered with violent flashes of blinding light. Hurriedly, he constructs a curtain in her subconscious that will repress all the multitude of lifetimes he know she will have to sort out. He can tell that Clara can see him, but she is so far gone, so deep inside the moment Oswin was reprogrammed with the Daleks' fury, that she recognizes him as the Predator and spits in his face.

"THE DOCTOR MUST BE DESTROYED," she shrieks in a voice that is not her own. Jenny gasps and nearly loses her grip.

"Shh, now," soothes the Doctor. He smiles sadly, eyes shining with tears, and strokes her cheekbones with his thumbs. "Shh, Oswin. I've got ya. You're alright."

"EX…exterm…Doc…" says Clara, and there, finally, the Doctor sees his Clara – the real Clara – come bubbling to the surface of her mind. She is huddled next to an impossibly cobalt blue TARDIS, hiding, with her hair covering her face.

"Clara," he calls out, and his tears finally drop when she looks up and locks eyes with him. Her face is gaunt and written over with horror.

"Doctor?" she answers, bewildered. "What –"

"Sleep," he tells her, and instantly, she does.

* * *

><p>When Clara wakes, she is somewhere soft, warm, and unfamiliar. She blinks slowly and tries to call out for the Doctor, but she can't make a sound.<p>

"Shhh," she hears him say, very close to her left ear. She can barely see him sitting there, next to the bed, his elbows on the mattress.

She tries very feebly to move her arms, but they are wrapped, she realizes, in at least four very thick, very soft blankets.

"Sorry about the blankets," he murmurs. She feels his voice more than she hears it. "I didn't want you to hurt yourself. Are you too warm?"

Clara wonders what he means about hurting herself, but a sharp chill overtakes her and drives out the curiosity. She shivers, shakes her head, and turns her face to burrow more deeply into the blankets. She was so tired. Why was she so tired?

She tries to use her voice again, to ask what had happened to her, but the Doctor was singing such a lovely melody that it seemed rude to interrupt.

As she drifts back into unconsciousness, she realizes she can understand the foreign lyrics. The syllables sound like glowing gold and orange and red spirals in her ear.

* * *

><p>The next time Clara wakes, the Doctor is asleep beside her, six inches from her blanket cocoon. Her brown eyes, bright even when shadowed with exhaustion, trace the lines of his cartoonish chin and she is confused when she sees scruff growing there.<p>

In fact (she lifts her head only a bit to see him better, but even that small motion makes her nauseous), it looks as though the Doctor hasn't changed his clothes or bathed in several days. His tweed jacket is crumpled on the ground, the bowtie along with it, and his clothes look wrinkled beyond their normal absent-minded professor state.

Her breaths are sharp and painful in her throat, so she tries to swallow and ends up whimpering. It's barely audible, but the Doctor wakes at it immediately.

"Clara! Ah, ah, no," he admonishes. "No speaking. Here." He helps her sit up against the headboard of the bed they're lying in. She feels ridiculous, wrapped up like she's in a burrito. The Doctor notices her expression of consternation, so he chuckles quietly and helps her extract the upper half of her body from the linens.

"Be right back," he says, and she barely has time to form another thought before he's sitting down next to her on the bed and handing her a mug of tea. She takes a tentative sip and though it burns down the back of her throat, she feels as though she might be able to speak again.

He stares at her. She stares back.

"How are you feeling?" he asks in a hushed voice, like she's dying or something.

"About as good as you look," she manages to croak, and she feels better when he laughs. "What happened?" she asks. She grips the mug with both hands so they'll stop shaking.

He peers at her intently. "What do you remember?"

She frowns at her partial reflection in the tea. The picture wobbles every time her hands tremble.

"The time stream. I jumped in."

He nods, but his gray-green eyes are narrowed in concern and do not offer her any help.

"I was there for so long, just…dying. Over and over again. But you…you _found _me. In your own time stream." She stops. Her head is pounding. "You shouldn't have done that, Doctor."

"_You_ need to start listening to _me_," he retorts, stern and desperate.

"Where would we be, then?" she asks quietly, and the Doctor just shakes his head. He takes the tea away from her and puts it on the bedside table. She hadn't noticed that she'd begun to spill it onto the sheets.

"So what happened?" she dares to ask. "Will you tell me? Please?"

He looks up at her, though his head remains bowed over the mug.

"You saved me, Clara," he tells her, and she is so, so worried when she notices that he is crying.

"Well, that's good," she says quietly. "Right? Isn't that good?"

He gives her that wide-eyed, high eyebrow "I'm trying to smile, but my hearts are breaking" look he doesn't think he has (even though she's told him he does) and softly palms her cheek. She leans into his touch and catches his wrist in both of her own hands.

"You were screaming, Clara. Screaming and hurting and I couldn't help you. You saved me and I couldn't help you…" he trails off hopelessly. Clara swallows and understands why her throat is so sore.

"Why?" she murmurs.

"You passed out right after I found you in my time stream," he says hollowly. He dares not meet her eyes. "Jenny and Vastra and Strax helped me get you back to the TARDIS, but you were…in pain. Right after we came inside the console room, you started to scream. We had to pin you down…I had to put you to sleep."

Clara's jaw clenches. "What was I screaming?" she asks, but as soon as the question leaves her lips, she remembers the answer.

The Doctor shakes his head and gets up from the bed without replying. He starts pacing. His whole body shakes: whether from fear or disgust or worry, she can't tell.

"Exterminate," she whispers. She wraps her arms around her knees, drawing them to her chest, and begins to rock to and fro, as if trying to steel herself.

The Doctor is at her side in a flash. He doesn't hesitate as he gathers her in his arms and begins murmuring soothing nonsense words into her hair. The language blossoms and entwines in her mind like circular fireworks.

"_Hush, now. You're safe. You're human. You're with me, _Clara. Shhh."

"_I know,"_ she sobs. Images race through her mind, but she does not experience them as before. _"I know. I know where I am. I know who I am. I know…"_

Clara shuts her eyes and watches the memories of Oswin Oswald flash once more, blinding and frightening, before they disappear behind a sparkling golden curtain she is certain the Doctor has constructed in her mind. She waits a moment, making sure they are safely hidden, before she opens her eyes.

The Doctor is staring at her in utter shock.

"_What've I done now?"_ she asks feebly, but she knows she's done the right thing. She's a tiny bit lighter. A tiny bit better.

"Clara_…can you understand me?"_ he asks.

She frowns at him.

"_Of course I can understand you. Why wouldn't I?"_

There's an expression in the Doctor's eyes that Clara has never seen before. It's burning and desperate and it scares her a little.

"_Because I'm not speaking modern English right now,"_ he tells her.

"_You told me the TARDIS can translate any language."_

"_Yes,"_ he says distractedly, now pulling out the sonic and aiming it at her head. _"Yes, she can, but she doesn't translate her native tongue. It was never part of her programming."_

Clara shakes her head at him, confused._ "I don't understand."_

"_Gallifreyan, _Clara_. You're speaking in Gallifreyan."_

"_Wha –"_ the word halts on her tongue and then, suddenly, she can't see straight. The Doctor becomes two Doctors, then four, and then everything is dark and Clara is watching an old man and a young woman sneak into the repair shop where she works.

"Clara? Clara!" The Doctor shouts, panicking. Clara slumps against the headboard, twitching, and she begins to speak in an accent the Doctor hasn't heard in a thousand years.

"_The navigation system's knackered, but you'll have much more fun,"_ she says to the naïve, arrogant white-haired man in her mind's eye.

The Doctor's hearts slow their frantic tattoo and he can't help the incredulous smile that flits across his face. This is a good memory. No screaming. Not yet, anyway.

The TARDIS suddenly wheezes and groans, and the Doctor is temporarily distracted, even as Clara continues to twitch in his arms.

"_Oh, come on,_" he scolds the machine. _"That's why you don't like her? Because she insulted you a thousand years ago?!"_

The TARDIS lets out a series of indignant, stuttering noises, and the Doctor rolls his eyes.

"_She's right, you know. You are mad."_

The lights flash in irritation and the Doctor starts to laugh.

"_She was the one that tried to fix you up in the first place, wasn't she? And she decided you were ready to retire, and put you on the museum list."_

The TARDIS hums like an angry swarm of bees. Clara frowns in her delirium and the Doctor watches in near-delight as her hands twist imaginary knobs and tap imaginary meters, trying to fix the ghost TARDIS in her memory.

"_Oh, shut up,"_ he tells the TARDIS. _"Look at her! Look at her, trying to fix you, still. She loves you, old girl. She's the one that put us together; she's the one that didn't want you to rot in a museum."_

The TARDIS is quiet for a moment. Then the rather small, cold bedroom the Doctor had demanded for Clara begins to expand. False windows with golden light and lace curtains appear in the walls; the floor sprouts thick, plush carpet; a plate of Jammie Dodgers appears on the nightstand.

"_That's my girl,"_ murmurs the Doctor, and he pats the wall gratefully. _"You lovely old thing, you."_

He settles back and watches in fascination for a few more minutes as Clara fiddles with a TARDIS mainframe that isn't there. She calls out to a long-lost coworker in that charming Low Gallifreyan accent, and the Doctor can't remember the last time he heard anything so beautiful.

He starts to panic when she stops breathing, but he remembers she did the same thing before waking up from her last nightmare, so he just holds onto her and hopes. He doesn't realize that he's been holding his own breath until she opens her eyes and takes her next one.

"Doctor," she says sleepily, the way she did when she woke up after being preserved in Sweetville, and he grins.

"Hey now," he says (in English, lest he trigger another flashback). "That one wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Mm mm," hums Clara in agreement. She closes her eyes. "Tired."

"Then go to sleep," he says.

"Doctor?" she asks drowsily. "The Gallifreyan's gone. I had to hide it behind the curtain. It was making my head burn. I'm sorry."

He drops a kiss on her forehead so she can't see the loneliness and disappointment on his face. "That's alright. That's good."

"It isn't," she insists.

"It is. I promise. Sleep now."

"You're the boss," she murmurs, and he laughs, even though he feels like breaking down.

* * *

><p>The Doctor only leaves Clara's room once a day during the next week, and even then, he carries with him the baby monitor he lifted from Craig and Sophie's house. He places it on the TARDIS console and glances back at it every few seconds to make sure Clara is sound asleep. Tonight, her face is bathed in multicolored light from the supernova outside her false windows, but he knows by looking at the constellations that the position matches where the TARDIS herself is anchored in the cosmos.<p>

The TARDIS is calm, floating on the outskirts of the Milky Way during the year 1891, when and where no technology from Earth or any other planet in this galaxy has any chance of disturbing them. The Doctor smiles as he notices that the ship has shut down all unnecessary operations around Clara's room, so that she can rest in absolute silence. He makes sure their position is locked and nods his head in approval.

"_Thank you_," he says in a low voice, before taking the monitor with him to the kitchen. He stops short when he sees two bowls of chicken soup sitting on the counter, steaming, with apple slices, crackers, and cheese on the side.

"_There is such a thing as kissing up, old girl_," he tells the TARDIS, secretly pleased, and he lifts the tray in his arms and carries it back to Clara's room. The door swings open noiselessly before him, and it's only when he hears Clara crying that he realizes he forgot the monitor in the kitchen.

He sets the tray down hastily. The broth spills over onto the dresser, but he ignores it and climbs into bed next to her. The small brunette is trembling like a leaf, still trapped in her subconscious, mumbling under her breath. He wraps the wad of blankets that is his companion in his arms. She clings to the lapels of his coat and murmurs: "I met you once. In the Gamma Forests."

Both of his hearts constrict in pain.

"You don't remember me," she continues, crestfallen. Her breathing is labored, and the Doctor knows her echo has been shot.

"Of course I remember," he says automatically, even though she can't hear him. He brushes her tangled hair away from her face. "I remember everyone."

Clara doesn't move or reply, and the way she stops breathing reinforces the two conclusions he has learned in the past seven days of sharing this bed:

This echo has just died.

And Clara would be waking up soon, a little brighter than she was before falling asleep.

It was a tedious process, this healing. For hours upon hours, Clara slept. She tossed and turned, sometimes speaking, crying, screaming, or even singing out her fractured memories. Most lifetimes were short, thankfully, and not all of them were nightmarish, but the Doctor is absolutely sure he will never forget the day before, when he listened to one of Clara's echoes suffer and be converted into a Cyberman. He had never been so grateful to see that someone had stopped breathing; stopped feeling pain.

He counts his heartbeats now. Twenty four pass before she gasps and sits up.

"I'm here. I'm here; you did it," says the Doctor, using his most gentle, calming tone. Clara turns and blinks at him several times, the last bit of memory flashing before her eyes. She hesitantly touches his shoulder, as if to make sure he's real and alive.

He doesn't think she realizes it, but she touches the same spot on his collarbone each time she wakes.

"Didn't we run, Lorna?" he asks sadly. Clara stares at him, still inhaling deeply, and she scrubs the last of Lorna's tears from her eyes.

"Who was she?" The Doctor asks, repeating the question he had asked of Vastra so many years ago at Demon's Run.

"Lorna Oswald Bucket," says Clara, her voice thick with emotion.

The Doctor never knows what to say at this point, so he says what he always does.

"Thank you."

Clara nods. She grips her hair with her hands, elbows on her knees, and stares at the mattress. The Doctor swears he can see Lorna's expression on her features.

"I'm sorry," he says brokenly, and wonders if it makes any difference now; whether his regret even matters to this fragmented, incredible woman beside him. How could she ever forgive him for one lifetime's worth of pain, much less a million lifetimes'?

Clara shakes her head and crawls into his arms, lying back with him on the pillows. He lets her, even though it makes him nervous. She's never done this whilst fully conscious. They lie there in silence for several minutes.

The Doctor is the first one to speak.

"I can't do this anymore."

Clara stiffens. She replies without looking at him.

"Alright. I can…just…drop me home. I'll be f –"

"No, no, no, not that," he quickly interrupts. "No, Clara, I can't let you keep doing this. It's hurting you. It's torture."

"I'm fine once I wake up and see that you're here."

"But if you'd just let me help sort –"

"No, Doctor," she says, resolute. "You've already messed with my head enough. I can do this. I need to learn how to suppress and access these memories by myself.

The Doctor thinks of Donna, and decides to let the matter go. For now. His sigh ruffles her hair.

"Okay."

Clara relaxes. She turns her face upwards toward him, to thank him, just as he lowers his to hers, intending to kiss the top of her head, as he always does.

Their mouths meet, clumsy and much more forcefully than any normal, planned kiss.

Clara springs away from him, out of the bed, her face burning bright pink. The Doctor remains frozen. His lips feel bruised.

"I'm so sorry!" squeaks Clara, fingers covering her mouth. The Doctor stares at her in shock, bemused at the sight of her in rumpled pajama shorts and a tee shirt, feet bare and cheeks quite flushed. He tries not to laugh, but he can't help the burst of surprised laughter that escapes him.

"Stop that!" she scolds him. A pillow hits him square in the face, and it only makes him laugh harder.

"You are so mean," she huffs, and, desperate to change the subject, she attempts to walk to the table and snatch up the apple slices she sees there. It's the first time she's walked on her own in several days, though, and her unsteady legs give out. The Doctor is up in a flash and catches her on the way down to the floor.

"Careful, careful," he says, voice full of mirth. Clara sits against him, breathing heavily. She still looks mortified as he hands her a slice of apple. Her wide eyes dart around the room, determinedly not looking at him.

"D'you know," says the Doctor casually, trying to break the ice, "you were a much better kisser in Victorian London."

Her head spins round fast, mouth in a very round 'o.'

"She – I – I _kissed_ you?" she asks incredulously.

"Quite fervently," he confirms, smiling.

Clara chews her apple slice for a long moment before she replies.

"I don't remember that one," she says, and the Doctor hears a tinge of her usual flirty curiosity in her voice. Her eyes dart down to his mouth.

"I'm sure you will, in time," he teases, a small grin on his face.

"I wouldn't mind a little help," she breathes, and her breath wipes the smile from his face. She's not teasing anymore. _Careful_, shouts his mind.

"Sounds more helpful than I've been so far," he murmurs. _Don't._

"Yeah, you've been terrible help so far."

"I'm sure I have done," he hears himself agree, though his mind is desperately trying to pump the brakes. Her lips touch his, much more softly this time, and he gives in. He holds her warm face in his palms, slipping into her mind. She doesn't draw away from him, as he expects, but allows him access.

Determined to show her that he can help sort these fractured lifetimes, he shows her all the beautiful parts of that Christmas: the kiss, the way he saw her grin and yank down the ladder with the umbrella, the happy, bewildered tears that filled her eyes when he gave her TARDIS key.

He feels her go still, so he draws back and puts his forehead on hers, waiting. The twenty four heartbeats he knows must pass until she breathes again seem like an eternity.

When she finally wakes, the Doctor can't help himself. He kisses her as soon as she stirs: slowly, sweetly, pouring all of his apologies and indebtedness into the embrace. She tastes like apples (and oddly, not like all the rubbish apples he's tasted in this regeneration) and smells like his soap, since she has none of her own onboard. She makes the smallest, most content sound he's ever heard in the back of her throat and threads her fingers in his hair, pulling slightly, which makes him realize how stupid thinking about apples is at that moment, so he stops thinking altogether.

She pulls away first, gasping for air. _Humans really should have two hearts_, he thinks_._ Her beautiful, inquisitive eyes are slightly crossed, and he takes this chance to quickly count all of her eyelashes. 313.

"Doctor," she sighs, still dazed.

"Clara."

"You're sure you're not a Cyber Planner?"

He chuckles and pulls her up, tucks her into bed.

"Pretty sure."

"Maybe I should slap you and check," she yawns. He kneels by the side of the bed and brings her hand to his mouth, kissing it.

"I'd rather you didn't. Don't you want to eat?" he asks softly. She shakes her head.

"I want to go on an adventure," she says drowsily.

"Soon enough," he promises, and turns to sit in the chair at the side of the bed.

"Doctor."

"Yes?" He looks up to see her holding the blanket away from her body, inviting him in.

"Please?"

Her face is the picture of vulnerability: innocent, expectant, honest, and lovely. He knows he shouldn't, but he toes off his shoes, sheds his coat, and slips in beside her.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he warns her, but his voice lacks conviction.

"I know," she mumbles, and he realizes that she knows better than anyone. "Just for now?"

She turns away from him and presses her back into his chest. His arms resume their usual place around her shoulders, but she takes them and wraps them around her torso. He swallows hard when his left forearm settles against the heated skin of her abdomen. Her hair falls over his face and he finds that he doesn't mind, even when it tickles his nose.

"Just for now," he tells her, but he's not sure if he can keep that promise. The Doctor sighs and reaches for the sonic so he can turn down the lights, but the TARDIS does it for him.

* * *

><p>The Doctor isn't there when Clara wakes. It's the first time since Trenzalore that she's been awake and alone, and the dread settling in her stomach (along with the pounding headache she's had since she jumped into the Doctor's time stream) makes her feel ill.<p>

The windows in her posh new bedroom suite blaze red with the light of a false sunset. Clara blinks a few times, confused, as she notices that the sunset is made up of two suns. The sky is bright orange, and the trees in the valley appear to have silver leaves.

"Is that…?" she whispers uncertainly, and the TARDIS hums pleasantly at her. Clara quirks an eyebrow, distracted from the window because of the sound.

"That sounded almost nice, dear," she tells the ship. "Careful, or we might start getting along, you and me."

The ship is silent, and the dread in her abdomen intensifies. Clara takes one last look at what she seems to remember in the very back of her mind as Gallifrey. She slips on a dressing gown, a pair of slippers, and wobbles her way out of her bedroom.

Her wristwatch tells her that it's 7:47 PM, Earth time. Ten days since Trenzalore. She has no idea what year they are in, or even where they are in space, but she finds that she doesn't care so much about that as she does the whereabouts of one double-hearted alien.

The TARDIS makes it easy for her to look in all the usual places: kitchen, library, console room, bathroom. She begins to wonder if she should look for a bedroom when she finally sees him sitting by the pool, his feet dangling in the water. He doesn't look round, but he hears her.

"How are you feeling?"

She pads over, slips her shoes off, and sits down beside him. His slacks are rolled up to the knees and his feet are bare.

"Better," she says.

"Liar."

"Am not. I don't feel well…but I do feel better."

"I'm glad," he says. He still hasn't looked at her. A silence falls between them, but it isn't the comfortable kind to which she's so accustomed.

"Look –"

"No," he interrupts her. "No, Clara."

She takes a chance and looks up at him. He is gazing down at her with such intensity that it catches her off-guard.

"I love you," he says evenly.

Clara freezes. The Doctor sighs and covers his face with his hands.

"This would be so much more enjoyable if I wasn't too scared to laugh at the look on your face," he mutters between his fingers. It breaks the tension enough that Clara smacks him on the arm. The Doctor leans back on his hands.

"I would be stupid not to love the woman who tore herself apart and died over and over again to save me, and I would be dumb and blind not to love you even if you hadn't," he says. "But I shouldn't have kissed you. I'm a selfish old man, and I'm sorry."

She swallows a knot in her throat. "Takes two to make a kiss like that," she answers, remembering the literal stars she had seen when he had kissed her awake.

"It shouldn't have happened. It can't happen again."

Clara swings her feet in the water. "What if I want it to?"

"Then you're not being as smart as we both know you are."

"River seemed fine," she counters, and she knows immediately that she's made a mistake.

"Clara, I _destroyed _River Song," he says bluntly, furiously. "Hundreds of years ago, I _killed _my wife. And after that, I had to sit and watch as she was kidnapped, brainwashed, forced to murder me, and wrongfully imprisoned."

He takes her by the shoulders and forces her to look up at him.

"I love…I _loved_ my wife. And there is no more exquisite, exact torture in this universe than falling in love with a person you have already seen die to save you. Especially…especially multiple times."

The Doctor's face goes blurry as Clara's eyes fill with tears.

"I will _not_ be the death of you again, Clara Oswald. Never."

Clara wrenches her shoulders away from his grip and stares out at the darkening pool, feeling hollow. They sit in silence for another long moment before the Doctor stands up and walks out of the room, leaving her there alone.

* * *

><p>They leave the TARDIS the next day.<p>

"Brilliant zoo on this planet!" the Doctor tells her brightly as they step into the light of a green sun. "Talking animals! Ooh, you're going to love it. Had the most illuminating conversation with a dizinpig last time I was here…"

He chatters and chatters, filling up the empty spaces in their relationship. Clara tries to give him the cold shoulder, but ignoring the Doctor when he has a sidesplitting grin on his face and two ice cream cones in hand was like ignoring an overexcited puppy. She gives in, eventually, slurping the ice cream as they walk slowly along, the Doctor ever mindful of her shortness of breath and constantly shifting state of mind.

"Ah, look, a little shop!" he exclaims as they reach the end of the park. "C'mon, Clara; I need one of those tin flatantlers."

She can't help but smile as they duck into the shop. It's filled with round wooden pods that float from corner to corner of the store. She furrows her brow and points at them wordlessly.

"Ooh, floating security cameras," the Doctor muses cheerfully. "Careful; met a live one, once."

A painful red flash temporarily blinds her. She stumbles and falls back into a hanging row of tee shirts.

"Clara?" he exclaims, dropping the snow globe he was holding. It shatters on the floor and the security cameras begin to flash and wail, but he doesn't notice.

"Clara!" he says, tapping her cheek. She doesn't wake, so he starts scanning with the sonic.

"No! Stop it! Don't..." Clara moans. The Doctor puts the sonic back in his jacket, confused.

"Okay, no more sonic," he murmurs, not sure if she is conscious or trapped in a shattered life. People start to gather around them, concerned. After a few seconds, Clara's eyes open, but the Doctor's throat clenches when he sees the faraway look in them.

"Donna Noble has left the Library," she says, very calmly. "Donna Noble has been saved."

The Doctor sits back on his heels, unable to think. Clara repeats herself over and over, her tone never changing.

"Donna Noble has left the Library. Donna Noble has been saved."

The Doctor scoops her up in his arms, leaps over the puddle of broken snow globe, and walks as quickly as he can back to the TARDIS. Clara never stops repeating herself, and the Doctor unconsciously avoids shadows as he deposits her back in her bed.

"I know, Clara; I know," he tells her, but she's stuck in a loop, feverish and unblinking. This has been the worst flashback since Oswin's, and he knows it's because she's remembering 4,000 other people jammed into her mind. He makes his decision in a split second and places his hands on her face.

Clara's mind is dark and full of people. Some of them stare into space, not speaking or moving. Some of them wail desperately and stumble around. He dives into the crowd, dodging shoulders and outstretched hands, crying for help. He can see the TARDIS, but the hundreds of people separating it from him seem impossible to cross.

"Oi, Spaceman!"

He freezes. Donna is standing in front of him, blazing with light and her signature sarcastic expression.

"Stop mucking about and come on," she demands. She looks exactly as she did in the Library – purple shirt, ginger pony tail, wearing the long gold earrings he won for her at the carnival on Haralix 4. She gives him no chance to speak as they make their way through the crowd of people like a battering ram.

"Move it!" she cries into the crowds of people. "I said _shift_!"

The Doctor can't help the smile that blooms on his face as he follows her. He feels taller and lighter, and he's beginning to wonder why he's wearing purple tweed and not a long brown coat when they finally arrive at the TARDIS. He turns to thank Donna; to apologize, over and over until she forgives him, but she is gone.

"Donna?" he shouts, spinning around wildly.

"Donna Noble has been saved," he hears, and he turns to see the little girl from the Library, Charlotte, standing in the doorway of the TARDIS. She seems afraid of him as she draws back to partially hide behind the door when he approaches.

"You did it," he tells her. "You saved them."

The little girl's face crumples. "The shadows. I have to…I have to save. Have to save."

"And so you did, Charlotte," he says. She allows him to take two more steps without shrinking away. "You saved them. You saved all of them. You saved Riv…" he starts to say, but his dead wife's name dies in his throat as he chokes on his overwhelming guilt.

Charlotte's head tips to one side mischievously.

"I thought you might be lonely, so I brought you some friends," she says. "Aren't I a clever girl?"

And then River is standing next to him, clothed in white and glowing. He can't stand to turn to her, so she takes his hand and presses her shoulder to his. He closes his eyes and drops his head.

"Hello, sweetie," she says, and kisses him on the cheek.

"We said goodbye, River," he murmurs painfully. "I can't do this anymore."

"I know," she replies. "That's why I've sent you someone else." She places a hand on his opposite cheek and turns his face so that he meets her eyes.

"Live well," she whispers. "Live well and withhold nothing. No one lives forever, my love. Not even you."

He blinks just once. River disappears and the little girl in the doorway becomes Clara, huddled on the ground. He takes one huge step and gathers her in his arms. She's not breathing.

"Time to wake up, Soufflé Girl," he says as the masses of lost people begin to queue up beside the golden curtain.

* * *

><p>They never come to an agreement; not really. They explore; they shout at each other inside and outside the TARDIS; they run towards danger and away from monsters, and they dance around each other like nervous horses, afraid to take hold of one another even in the perilous moments.<p>

One day, however, after the Doctor has just hauled Clara out of a neon yellow quicksand pit and is helping her clear the slime from her hair, the Doctor understands what River was telling him. And so he kisses her, hard, right then and there.

"It's not a 'but,'" he breathes.

"Huh?" she asks, shocked and dizzy.

"It's not a 'but,' Clara.'"

She frowns, incredulous. "You're sounding bonkers again."

"It's not, 'I love you, but I can't be your boyfriend,'" he babbles, tracing her cheekbones, slimy though they are. "It's, 'I love you, and I can't be your boyfriend.'"

She blinks a few times, trying to keep up with his logic.

"Does that mean I can –" she starts, but cuts herself off by pulling his face down to hers and kissing it.

"Please," he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Good," she sighs.

A laser beam shoots very close to his ear just then, so she grabs his hand and starts running.

"I thought I told you that the hand-grabbing was my thing!" he shouts at her, dodging more laser flares.

"Not sure you get a vote!" she shouts back, just as they duck into a bush to hide. They sit and watch the soldiers run past, holding hands very tightly.

"Doctor?" Clara whispers.

"Shh!" he scolds her.

"Love you, too."


End file.
